No Shortage of Hypocrisy in the Fifa Corruption Scandal

There appear to be smoking guns aplenty as far as corruption and malpractice within FIFA are concerned, but there are also lots of senior administrators within English football on some very high horses at the moment.

Now, I'm certainly not accusing anybody in the English FA of corruption but let's be fair here, for all of FIFA's many failings they can at least point to their efforts to redistribute some of the spoils of the global football financial juggernaut to many of the poorest corners of the globe.

Could the same claim be made on behalf of the English FA and their flagship league regarding the distribution of funds from the mammoth TV deals? I think not.

Domestically the premier league has been slowly sucking the life out of the game for years. A deeply ingrained culture of greed that has seen record television deals make obscenely rich young footballers and their agents even wealthier. Those presiding over the self styled 'greatest league in the world' have sat on their hands whilst thousands of long standing supporters have been priced out of watching their teams. These same football administrators have done precious little to assist community focused club's further down the football pyramid that are in danger of going to the wall for the sake of half a bog standard premier league strikers weekly salary.

The premier league 'product' is hugely successful and frequently exciting but it's all about greed. A sanitised money making vehicle that could be vastly improved if it followed the German model which still places the supporter at the heart of the game. A model which recognises that a club's lifeblood really is its fans and the maintenance of the vital bond between club and supporter is still of paramount importance.

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This is no defence of FIFA. Blatter and his cronies are quite rightly getting lambasted and major reform is undoubtedly necessary, but there is no moral high ground to be taken as far as the English FA are concerned. Much of the recent media coverage in this country of the FIFA affair has smacked of continued sourness at England's failure to win their World Cup bid and good old fashioned disdain for 'Johnny Foreigner.' An inbuilt arrogant belief that a country that gave the game to the world should still be running every facet of it.

Punish anyone within FIFA found guilty of corruption, drastically reshape the organisation to make it fit for purpose but let's not all surf on an English tide of staggering hypocrisy.